Interesting start to season for Sun Belt Conference teams

MOBILE, Alabama -- The opening week of college football carries a familiar scenario for Sun Belt Conference teams: matchups against Top 5 opponents and some interesting regional matchups.

New Arkansas State head coach Gus Malzahn talks with Ryan Wilbourn (81) prior to the start of last year's GoDaddy.com Bowl against Northern Illinois at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile. (Press-Register/Mike Kittrell)

Perhaps the two games that will garner the most attention will be played Saturday with defending Sun Belt champion Arkansas State traveling to face Oregon and North Texas visiting LSU. Oregon is ranked No. 5 in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 poll and played Auburn in the BCS national championship game for the 2010 season. LSU is ranked No. 3 in the AP preseason Top 25 and played Alabama in last year's BCS national title game in New Orleans.

Arkansas State is led by first-year head coach Gus Malzahn, the former Auburn offensive coordinator and high school head coach in Arkansas. North Texas is coming off a 5-7 record last season under head coach Dan McCarney.

Middle Tennessee will be the first Sun Belt team to play this season when it hosts McNeese State Thursday night. On Friday, Wagner visits Florida Atlantic.

South Alabama was scheduled to play Texas-San Antonio, a team the Jaguars beat 30-27 in double overtime last season, on Thursday night in Mobile but the affects of Hurricane Isaac forced postponement of the game until Saturday at 1 p.m. at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. It will match a pair of teams making the transition to full Football Bowl Subdivision status.

Troy, which won or shared five consecutive Sun Belt crowns from 2006-10, travels to Birmingham to face Conference USA member UAB at Legion Field in an 11 a.m. game on Saturday. The game features Troy's Larry Blakeney, the school's all-time winningest coach and a member of the inaugural class of Troy's Sports Hall of Fame, and UAB's Garrick McGee, who is making his debut as the Blazers' head coach.

Other Saturday games featuring Sun Belt teams includes Austin Peay at Western Kentucky, Florida International at Duke and Lamar at Louisiana-Lafayette.